Marcello Hernández | Good Hang with Amy Poehler

Episode Overview

• Host and Executive Producer Amy Poehler (former SNL cast member and co-founder of the Upright Citizens Brigade) welcomes current SNL cast members Sarah Sherman (entering her 5th year) and Marcello Hernandez (entering his 4th year) to Good Hang (produced by The Ringer and Paper Kite Productions).
• The episode explores how Hernandez transitioned from a high-energy Division III college soccer player with unmedicated ADD to a bilingual stand-up comedian and sketch performer at Saturday Night Live.
• Sherman opens the show by detailing Hernandez's boundless backstage energy, fierce loyalty to his family, and surprising generosity toward his fellow castmates.
• Hernandez traces his comedic roots to his half-Cuban, half-Dominican upbringing in Miami, explaining how his immigrant family dynamics shaped his worldview, stage presence, and work ethic.
• Poehler and Hernandez compare generational experiences at SNL—from backstage stress dreams and rehearsal notes to the challenge of staying grounded in the present moment rather than obsessing over future career milestones.

Key Concepts

• Channeling Hyperactivity and "Aggressive" Generosity into Team Chemistry: Sherman claims Hernandez cannot be alone for more than 5 seconds and brings intense physical energy to the SNL offices—such as stacking chairs into a tower on top of the 17th-floor writing table at 3:00 AM with Kam Patterson to do backflips over them, doing a back handspring/backflip in sketches with Sebastian Maniscalco (playing a lawyer) and Jack Black, or playing a game called "Seal" where he runs through the hallway and slides across the long table-read table on his stomach (a habit Poehler notes Jimmy Fallon used to do). He also brought his girlfriend's old foot-injury scooter (after buying her a new one) to the SNL offices so cast and crew can get to the bathroom in a couple of minutes. Beneath his "little brother" persona of teasing Sherman and giving her wedgies lies extreme generosity: when he asked Sherman at 10:00 PM if she wanted Thai food and she jokingly asked for a "Beats Pill" speaker, he actually bought her a $300 speaker, and when she tracked his phone location after he didn't text back, she saw he was doing a children's fundraiser in Costa Rica. He also calls Sherman on Wednesdays at 8:00 PM during hiatuses to encourage her to put her avails in at the Comedy Cellar, and he rode a bike to the podcast studio to save 9 minutes on his commute while sending flowers ahead in a car with his assistant.
• The Cultural Cadence of a Half-Cuban, Half-Dominican Upbringing: Growing up in Miami with unmedicated ADD, Hernandez's parents put him in sports just to tire him out so he would go to sleep; his mom pulled him out of baseball because he did cartwheels and played with insects in the outfield, moving him to soccer, where he played as a winger until college. His comedic ear was trained by observing the stark linguistic and cultural contrasts in his household: Cubans dance salsa (which he compares to math: "1, 2, 3, stop") and speak with a deeper, slower cadence, whereas Dominicans dance merengue and bachata and speak with a higher, faster, New York-like cadence. His mother fled Cuba after the communist government took her belongings, and in her desire to assimilate, she told the family for years they were going to change their last name to "Smith" and frequently said, "Blondes have more fun." (Hernandez also notes his younger sister is a quiet architect/interior designer, supporting his mother's theory that if a first child is "insane," the second child will be quiet).
• The "Young Boomer" Immigrant Mindset: Despite being SNL's first Gen Z cast member, Hernandez rejects the Gen Z label and identifies as a "young Boomer," arguing that Gen Z combined with the immigrant struggle equals a Boomer mentality because he was never allowed to complain or validate "mental health." Furthermore, his family toughened him up through constant teasing—because he was short, his household nicknames were Pulga (flea) and Enano (dwarf)—which prevented him from being "soft" and prepared him for the rejection of show business. (Today, Jodi Mancuso—head of the SNL hair department and the vocal inspiration for Poehler's "Bronx Beat" sketch—is the only person Hernandez's mother allows to cut his hair).
• Mentorship and the Pivot from Athletics to Performing: Recruited to play college soccer by Occidental College in California and John Carroll University in Ohio, Hernandez went to Ohio because his mother forbade him from going to California, where it was too far for her to monitor him. His performance spark began in his senior year of high school when his drama teacher promised to get him out of school for 3 days for a competition in Tampa if he memorized contrasting monologues; he won by performing a tragic monologue about a gang member's brother shooting himself alongside John Leguizamo's comedic "Ramón the Cuban cabana boy" from Mambo Mouth (and a piece from Class Action). In college, his first screenwriting teacher, Bob Noll, assigned him to rewrite his favorite comedy movie (The 40-Year-Old Virgin) with one change, which he rewrote with a female lead. In his freshman or sophomore year, a Shakespearean performance class taught by Bo Smith (who inspired the class in his late 60s by stripping off his tie and necklace to perform King Lear on his knees) and his partner Tomeroch changed his life. After the couple was let go and Tom passed away, Hernandez established "The Bo and Tom Scholarship by Marcello Hernandez" at John Carroll University (which has had 2 recipients so far). He finally quit his Division III soccer team after winning an amateur comedy competition that paid $500 to host a weekend at the Funny Stop Comedy Club in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio—though his coaches refused to tell the team for him, forcing him to go downstairs crying and shake the hands of all 27 players.
• Stage Time, Audition Nerves, and the "Power of Fear" at SNL: Before his big break, Hernandez hosted almost every night at The Stand comedy club in NYC to maximize stage time (Sherman notes he just put out an hour of stand-up and already has another hour ready while constantly touring, though she hedges on his writing process, guessing he writes a lot on stage). While Hernandez hedges that the audience at his first UCB audition didn't laugh hard at his jokes about his mom escaping communism because "some people there, they don't think communism is that bad," he later landed his SNL audition after a 6-minute set at the Just For Laughs (JFL) festival where his hands were visibly shaking the entire time. For his callback at 30 Rock, he blasted the Brass Tracks version of Mariah Carey's "Always Be My Baby" on repeat in the dressing room, performed to a quiet room where someone coughed, and got the job a few weeks later—initially thinking he would "make a million dollars" before realizing cast members don't make that. Though Poehler thinks he looks relaxed on SNL (and notes her two sons met him and love watching younger people on the show), Hernandez hedges that it is actually "the power of fear—probably, you're just so scared of it going wrong." Because he swings so hard out of fear, his biggest note at dress rehearsals is to "calm down"—such as in a sketch with Colman Domingo where he screamed the made-up number "11ty-2" so aggressively after saying "flebenty-four" that the writers begged him to stop. Conversely, in the viral "Domingo" sketch—written by Ceara O'Sullivan and Jimmy Fowlie, set to Sabrina Carpenter's "Espresso," and featuring Ariana Grande singing poorly on purpose—he was rewarded by the audience despite entering at the very end for "3 seconds." Both Poehler and Hernandez also share the recurring SNL stress dream of being too far away and too late to make it to the studio floor; Hernandez once almost missed a sketch (panicking stage manager Gena Rositano), and Poehler once walked onto a live sketch in the wrong wig and had to swap it in 5 seconds.
• The Power of Bilingual Stand-Up and Creative Humility: Hernandez tours doing stand-up in Spanish alongside comedians like Angelo Colina, Laura Bolivar, Santi Espinosa, Pedro Gonzalez, and Mexican stand-up pioneer Sofía Niño de Rivera. Bringing an American-style, punchy observational cadence into Spanish creates a powerful communal release for Latino audiences, and his family, girlfriend, and father actually think he is a better comedian in Spanish than in English. Despite his stand-up success and quick wit—demonstrated on the podcast when he jokes they are recording on the 115th floor of the Spotify building, teases Poehler that her phone is from 2004, and plays a 1-minute "Expert" improv game where Poehler improvises on "Corn" and he improvises on "Penicillin" by inventing a fictional 1879 scientist named "Jeffrey L. Cillin" (while admitting he went to summer school for chemistry and failed)—he strongly hedges on his sketch-writing abilities. Stating he doesn't feel like a great writer, he credits SNL writers Jake Nordwind, Mike DiCenzo, and Asha Ward for helping him format sketches and plans to take a sketch-writing class this summer.
• Disclosed Sponsors: The episode includes disclosures for PayPal (promoting "Pay in 4" interest-free split payments, NMLS 910457), Visible by Verizon (promoting a $25/month unlimited 5G wireless plan and Visible Plus plan with $10 off the first month using promo code HANG), and Allstate (promoting auto insurance quotes from Allstate North American Insurance Company and affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois).

Quotes

• At 0:04:36 - "He's very menschy, like he's, you know, like he's really tight with his mom. You know he's like such a good guy because of how like well he takes care of his like family." - Sarah Sherman explaining how Hernandez's backstage reputation is anchored by his devotion to his family.
• At 0:06:04 - "He's really great at SNL because he is like kind of like a team player in like a real way, like he's really good at like involving people in bits and like in sketches and like he, you know, he gets everyone's voice really well and he's really good at including other people in his bits in a way that's like extremely generous." - Sarah Sherman describing why Hernandez thrives in an ensemble comedy environment.
• At 0:19:48 - "I work very hard in my life, but I don't like to work. Working is bad and weird. So everything but work is always usually my goal when I'm working." - Marcello Hernandez explaining why he invents backstage games and distractions to keep the SNL work environment playful.
• At 0:22:49 - "My parents' goals always throughout my life was to get me tired. Does that make sense? So all the activities I ever did were always with the ultimate goal of will he go to sleep?" - Marcello Hernandez on how his childhood sports career began as a way to manage his unmedicated ADD.
• At 0:26:30 - "When she came to America, she really leaned in to being American. Like for years she would tell us we're all going to change our last name to Smith. Because she was like, I'm American now, I don't want to be Cuban anymore." - Marcello Hernandez illustrating his mother's intense desire to assimilate after fleeing communist Cuba.
• At 0:33:01 - "So I started a scholarship at my school, at the college I went to, and it's for kids that want to do what I did, and it's called the Bo and Tom Scholarship by Marcello Hernandez." - Marcello Hernandez sharing how he honored the college professors who inspired him to pursue performance.
• At 0:42:25 - "Because I think Gen Z plus immigrant struggle equals Boomer. I'm a young Boomer in many ways. I didn't get to have mental health, you know what I mean?" - Marcello Hernandez explaining why his upbringing aligns his worldview with older generations rather than Gen Z.
• At 0:46:47 - "And then I think it's very SNL for the audience to reward the guy that did the least in the sketch." - Marcello Hernandez reflecting on the viral success of the "Domingo" sketch, in which he only appeared at the very end for 3 seconds.
• At 0:48:05 - "You're just so scared of it going wrong that you're like, if it goes wrong, I'm going to go wrong swinging to the rafters." - Marcello Hernandez revealing that his seemingly relaxed, high-energy stage presence is actually driven by a fear of failure.
• At 0:51:48 - "When you do an American style of stand-up, punchy, observational stuff, I think the audiences, it's a refreshing feeling. And so I feel that when I'm like doing a Spanish set with all Hispanic people and we're all laughing, and especially today when Latinos are going through a lot and we just get to be in a room and scream in Spanish, it feels very powerful." - Marcello Hernandez on the cultural impact of performing American-style observational stand-up in Spanish.
• At 0:55:40 - "My deal is that I was not given the opportunity to be soft in my house. They were mean to me my whole life, my family! I was short, my nickname in the house was Pulga, which means flea. That's my name in my house. I'm short, so they call me dwarf in my house. Enano means dwarf, that was my name in my house." - Marcello Hernandez explaining how his family's relentless teasing built his comedic thick skin.
• At 1:02:28 - "I would say I think the real win is being actually where you are in life and trying as best you can to enjoy it. It's like the hardest thing in the world to do, but the few times I've done it, my whole life has changed." - Amy Poehler offering career advice on resisting creative dissatisfaction by grounding oneself in the present moment.

Takeaways

• Ground yourself in the present moment rather than obsessing over the next milestone: While Poehler hedges that the entertainment industry changes too fast to predict ("who fucking knows, in five years we may have to do comedy on the moon") and admits she doesn't always follow her own advice, she emphasizes that creative people suffer from endless "if I get here, then I'll get here" dissatisfaction. Actively pause to look around and laugh with the people you work with right now.
• Use play to diffuse high-pressure work environments: Whether sliding across a table-read table like a seal or bringing a scooter into the office, intentionally injecting physical play into grueling late-night work hours prevents burnout and keeps creative rooms loose.
• Be a generous ensemble collaborator: Build goodwill and elevate group projects by learning your coworkers' unique voices, writing them into your bits, and encouraging them to get stage time during off-weeks.
• Maximize low-stakes reps before high-stakes auditions: Take hosting gigs or smaller nightly sets at local clubs to build muscle memory so your material holds up even when your hands are visibly shaking in a quiet audition room.
• Commit fully when terrified, then calibrate: If fear of failure makes you nervous, channel that adrenaline into "swinging to the rafters" rather than shrinking back—it is always easier for producers or mentors to tell you to dial your energy down than to manufacture energy that isn't there.
• Stay a student of your craft even after achieving success: Even in his 4th year on SNL, Hernandez openly admits he doesn't feel like a great sketch writer yet, leans on experienced peers to help format his ideas, and plans to take a summer sketch-writing class to improve his weaknesses.
• Pay forward the mentorship that changed your trajectory: When you achieve financial or professional stability, look back at the teachers or communities that gave you permission to pursue your craft and create tangible pathways (like Hernandez's college scholarship) for the next generation.